Covid-19 restrictions easing?

Maybe? Hope so, otherwise, who knows where my eighty-nine-year-old Mum might end up.

At the height of lockdown, a kind security guard found her wandering confused at 3am, through the meal room at her retirement village’s residential complex. Mum chatted and laughed with the amiable guard, until suddenly, she grew embarrassed.  She thought it was 3pm.  Amid her befuddlement, the rules restricting residents to their apartments had slipped her mind, and she had casually rolled her walking frame up for a cuppa with her friends. Oops!

On the upside, Mum reckons, she found a handsome young bloke to escort her safely home for the first time in many years. As our community reconnects, I imagine we will be patient, and empathetic to those who have struggled more than ourselves during isolation. From Wallangarra to Allora, from Karara to Killarney, folks are resurfacing about our towns, on the sporting fields and paddocks, in our clubs, pubs, cafes and restaurants. But many, in those high risk health categories, are still fearful, frail, and cautious to venture out. I trust, in caring for others, we will continue to model the example shown by those who have gone before us. Please, be neighbourly and take a moment to drop in to check on the elderly in your lives, including that lonely looking character a few doors down, because like my mum Audrey, they deserve looking after. Thanks mate!

‘… and though I’ve sought to travel, collecting unheard tales

from strange and distant places where I roam,

I would trade them all tomorrow, for a Country Mother’s love

and the promise of a day with her at home.’